Sayyed Nasrallah Appears in Person For Ashoura: Our Candidate for President is Michel Aoun

Defying all threats, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah appeared in person at Sayyed Shohadaa complex on the eve of Ashura, unleashing stances on internal and regional issues.

Sayyed Nasrallah”Our actual candidate for the presidential elections is General Michel Aoun,” Sayyed Nasrallah said from Beirut’s southern suburb in commemoration of the tenth night of Ashura, adding that “he who’s betting on external conflicts to elect the President will wait for years.” He said that if the local forces want to engage in national dialogue, “they must first liberate themselves from regional vetoes.”

“The main dialogue must take place with our candidate, whose name is Michel Aoun,” he said. His Eminence added that Tehran rejects any framed settlements along the nuclear negotiations and Syria, despite its interior crisis, announced its acceptance to whatever Lebanese agree upon about the presidential elections. “If the presidential elections had become out of the hands of the Lebanese so let’s return it from those of regional powers.”

Concerning the extension of the parliament, Sayyed Nasrallah asserted that heading to the vacuum in the Parliament is a big blow, especially if it was added to the presidential vacuum. “We totally reject heading to vacuum but a group of the Sunni component does not want parliamentary elections while a team of the Christian component does not want an extension, ” the S.G. said. “We are before three options for the Parliament, either an extension, a vacuum or elections.” He indicated that extension or elections are better than vacuum. He called on all parliamentary blocs to help Speaker Nabih Berri in order to pull the country out of a major crisis.

On security developments in Tripoli, Sayyed Nasrallah said that the Lebanese army had bore the brunt in the face of the challenge in Tripoli, “they had also been exposed to lots of abuses on the ground and at media and political levels but they continued their mission and succeeded.”

“An extra factor that contributed to overstep Lebanon this major catastrophe was the behavior of the residents of Tripoli and the North and the political leaders of the dear Sunni Muslim community,” he added hailing the stances of the prime minister, the Mufti and the ex-PMs, “but the main role was played by al-Mustaqbal movement and its leaders.”

“The resistance has never presented itself as the party in charge of domestic security,” he pointed out. “We stress our confidence in the military institution which constitutes the genuine guarantee for Lebanon, civil peace and the survival of the state, whatever the condition of the state was and there’s no alternative to the army in maintaining security and stability.”

Regarding the Iranian grant to the Lebanese Army, the secretary general announced that Iran has always been ready to offer donations to the Lebanese army,” he said, adding “in the Iranian grant there are weapons without any compromises and accepting them is the interest of the Army and Lebanon.” His Eminence called on all political forces to the dialogue table, and said, “If we want to dissociate our country we must hold talks, and there are some allies who spoke with us and asked us hasn’t the time come to a dialogue between Al-Mustaqbal and Hezbollah? We said that we do not mind.”

Sayyed Nasrallah also tackled the issue of the Lebanese army soldiers abducted by militant groups, saying “this issue is in our mind and heart, the Lebanese government is following up with this issue and I call on the soldiers’ families for more patience and more support for the government because in such complicated issue we need to unite and cooperate.”

Hezbollah leader stressed that the conflict in the region is not a sectarian conflict. “There is an error in diagnosing the nature of the conflict in the region, which is not a Sunni-Shiite conflict. Are the events in Egypt, the attacks on Christians in Iraq, the extermination of Yazidis and the fighting in Kobani related to a Shiite-Sunni conflict?” “We, the Shia, should not be dealing with the conflict as being sectarian, our battle is not with the Sunnis, but with the American hegemony, Israeli scheme and Takfiris (extremist groups).”

At the end of his speech, His eminence called on huge participation in marches of the tenth day of Ashura pledging allegiance to Imam Hussein and Sayyed Zainab (AS).